Foreword
West Midlands has more parks than Paris, more canals than Venice and the most Michelin stars outside of London.
We’re not just the birthplace of Peaky Blinders but home to world class museums, galleries, theatres, exhibition centres and cinemas. We gave you Shakespeare, heavy metal, Cluedo, Lord of the Rings, bhangra, Lenny Henry, the Doctor Who theme tune and so much more. The West Midlands is a creative powerhouse with a melting pot of diverse culture. There are many sides to the West Midlands, and we have our own story to tell.
Now is the time for West Midlands to shine.
Driving West Midlands Economy
Forget ‘nice to have’ – cultural and creative industries are big business. And they are crucial for our future economy too.
Prior to Covid, creative industries contributed £111+ billion to the UK economy. That’s £13 million every hour – and more than automotive, aerospace, life sciences and oil and gas industries combined.
In the West Midlands, cultural & creative sectors combined are bigger than construction, life sciences, healthcare, logistics & transport technologies,
and low carbon & environmental technology sectors in terms of Gross Value Added (GVA).
Cultural & creative industries are industries of the future – resilient to robots and artificial intelligence taking over people’s jobs. West Midlands already once nearly lost its fortunes by the decline of traditional industries.
We need to futureproof our workforce and business sectors by ensuring we invest into our cultural and creative industries.
Every job in the West Midlands cultural sector supports 0.78 of a job in the wider economy
– a higher multiplier than in retail, law and accounting.
In the five years prior to Covid, West Midlands cultural sector had a 20% employment growth – making it the second fastest growing sector in the region after business support services.
Our heritage sector:
- Employs over 46,000 people
- Creates £1.2 billion direct GVA and £559m indirect GVA
- Generates an additional £1.26 GVA for every £1m by our heritage sector
- Heritage tourism spend is worth £780m for West Midlands.
Places and People
But it is not just about jobs.
It is about our places and our people, how we generate new ideas and secure our futures.
The bad news is our high streets are dying. The good news is that cultural and creative industries can help to revive them.
Culture is the new marketing cost. It can support meanwhile uses, create events & festivals, make our high streets more pleasant, bring people together – and most importantly, attract other businesses.
Cultural Action Zones (CAZs)
CULTURAL ACTION ZONES (CAZs) ARE COMMUNITY-LED CULTURAL and ARTS PROGRAMMES INCENTIVISING LOCAL STAKEHOLDERS TO COME TOGETHER TO IMPROVE THEIR LOCALITIES. THIS HAS BEEN ESPECIALLY VALUABLE POST-PANDEMIC WHERE RETAIL ALONE HAS PROVEN INSUFFICIENT TO RESTORE FOOTFALL NUMBERS. CAZ’S CAN COVER ANY TYPE OF AREA FROM PART OF A HIGH STREET TO A TOWN CENTRE.
Since 2021, GBSLEP has been supporting nine Cultural Action Zones supported nine Cultural Action Zones in Birmingham, Kidderminster and Solihull. Examples of the activities supported include recurring festivals, pop-up markets, street art tours, multi-language poetry readings and co-created art installations. To date, there have been:
- Over 200 organisations helped to facilitate events
- Over 11,500 people engaged through activities
- 142 local artists commissioned
Key to the success of CAZs has been the
inclusion of local businesses and local stakeholders from the start to ensure that activities are relevant to the communities. This has allowed activities to flourish in areas which traditionally have struggled to engage with such programmes.
The economic case for Cultural Action Zones is also very strong, with over 80% of businesses surveyed reporting an increase in revenue as a direct cause of CAZ activity. Culture is a cost-effective way to deliver cost-effective interventions for high streets.
Similarly, our night-time economy is driven by culture. But it can only work effectively if supported through other policy areas – like transport, licencing, and local planning. Prior to Covid the UK night-time cultural economy was worth £112 billion (5.1% of GDP), supporting 1.94 million jobs.
The impacts of the pandemic have however been severe, with estimated 86,000 jobs lost to date. We must work together to ensure West Midlands night-time economy can truly thrive.
Finally, cultural & creative industries are essential to innovation. They act as research & development labs, encouraging experimentation and in turn driving innovation and commercial activity.
Public funding enables arts & cultural organisations to carry risk and test concepts that would otherwise be too costly to
bring to market.
Firms that integrate arts and design
skill and thinking into research processes are more productive, more likely to grow in the future, and more likely to produce radical innovations.10
This is why we need STEAM – not STEM.
BOM
BOM IS A BIRMINGHAM-BASED CENTRE FOR ART, TECHNOLOGY AND SCIENCE DEDICATED TO CREATIVE INNOVATION AND RUNNING DIGITAL SKILLS PROGRAMMES FOR UNDERREPRESENTED GROUPS.
Access - BOM’s Schools Education Programme engages 400 school children each year, providing hands-on creative activities blending art, technology, science, and inspirational workshops from organisations like NASA, Public Health England and the Crick Institute.
Skills - The programme is aimed at children with special educational needs or disabilities and young people excluded from mainstream education. 100% of learners gain increased creative and critical thinking skills and improved wellbeing. BOM’s Propeller programme supports more than 36 neurodivergent adults each year to enter the creative industries, providing pathways into employment through digital skills training, autism-led mentoring, tailored professional development and mental health support.
Nurture - BOM’s residents creative tech incubator supports over 15 diverse artists each year through tailored creative professional development. 90% of practitioners secure new work and paid opportunities as a direct result of engagement. 100% of practitioners gain new digital skills and knowledge of emerging technologies
What next?
West Midlands has a unique opportunity to build on the legacy of major cultural events such as Coventry City of Culture and the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games cultural programme.
We must ensure that we use this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to futureproof our region and to ensure our young creative talent and businesses can flourish.
To do this we need to:
- Truly recognise the value our cultural and creative sectors deliver.
- Embed them into our thinking across policy areas – from transport to innovation and public health to regeneration and planning.
- Ensure we move away from programme funding and single projects towards a long-term strategic vision and investment plan for the region
- Secure more investment for West Midlands to level up culture
Stop seeing heritage assets as problems – but rather create new ways to ensure we maximise their role in regeneration, high streets, creative cluster development, repurposing, net zero and inclusive growth
Support our cultural ecology and development of creative clusters by:
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Ensuring access to local talent across creative & non-creative roles
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Create more equitable and accessible talent development opportunities for everyone
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Addressing the severe skills gaps we are currently seeing
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Creating specific support for creative sector freelancers – which make up to 50% of the workforce
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Ensuring arts, culture & creative industries are at the heart of our work on innovation and technology
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Supporting business to access finance & investment
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Ensuring our cultural and creative sectors have the facilities and infrastructure they need
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Fiscal innovation to reduce red tape and barriers to growth
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Creating opportunities for international working and exports
Creativity is part of our region’s fabric, but we need to unleash its full potential, give opportunities to generations to come and continue to celebrate our successes and share them with the world. We need to work together to achieve this.
Andy Street, Mayor of the West Midlands, said: "Creativity is the driving force of our region. It is reflected in our rich heritage, our diverse cultures, and our entrepreneurial spirit. Our world-class arts & cultural sector is at the core of this, moving us forward, shaping our identity and nurturing the next generation of creative talent. Art and culture help to strengthen our society, bringing communities together, inspiring our young people, and making places more attractive for residents, visitors, and investors."
Anita Bhalla, OBE, Chair, GBSLEP and Chair, B:Music, said:
“Our cultural and creative sectors are an amazing resource for the West Midlands. They are a key driver of our economy, innovation and competitiveness,
but also provide other value through benefits to our people and our places. There aren’t enough pages to explain the value, benefits and proven impact of our cultural and creative sectors – there are so many sides of the story that deserve to be shared."
Carol King, WMCA Cultural Leadership Board, said:
"With sufficient investment and support we can create employment & talent opportunities especially for your young population, boost our economy, and encourage tourism from within our own boundaries to right across the globe. More importantly, we can bring our communities together, uncover hidden talents and continue to put West Midlands on the global map as a leading creative region.”